Need for Speed: The Run, but good. Give me an uninterrupted race accoss the US (or any other continent), against 199 other drivers, with strategic decisions to make such as fuel stops, sleep breaks, multiple paths… Make it a rogue lite with unlockable vehicle classes, police chases, weather changes, racing through traffic… Bonus points for realistic physics and VR support.
Nfs the run was so disappointing. Even for a nfs game.
Some NFS game are straight up terrible (Undercover…), but at least the good ones with similar gameplay (NFSU2, Carbon) still exist. But The Run was worse than bad; it was disappointing. It could have been good, but wasn’t, and they never tried to make another one with a similar premise.
The only good part of the game is the bonus mission in Carbon Canyon, in all its HD glory.
What about the avalanche mission? Did you find that too Micheal Bay movie-like?
I don’t remember it. I don’t think I played this game a lot.
Here you go if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/M0fpD8LP08Y?si=Mb_msbQ8FFDghfbG
Honestly I loved The Run. It was a jam packed unique short game experience. It was definitely too short for it’s price, but you know at that time Blackbox was working on 3 separate games.
Cities: Skylines but ecosystem repair. Plant forests, regrade areas of mountains to mitigate landslide potential, reintroduce species and study their functional relationships with each other… Game progression comes in the form of additional research grants or new area assignments which present new challenges and unlock a new set of tools/procedures, but the successes from previous sites allow for migration of the reintroduced species into the new site.
Terra Nil is like 80% of this.
I’ve only watched gameplay of Terra Nil, but it seems like it’s just an environmentalism themed puzzle game. You could replace all the titles with colors, and all the buildings and what they do with arbitrary rules, and it seems like it wouldn’t look anything like an ecosystem sim. It would be like taking the game Lights Out, changing dark spots to “growth”, light spots to “wastelands” and saying the goal is to balance out the ecosystem.
I didn’t see the late game though, so maybe I didn’t see where it shines.
I was hoping this was the direction Dyson Sphere Program would go. I think it would be an interesting twist on the factory management genre if nature was working against you; not in a Factorio “aliens will attack you if they see your pollution” way, but a “you’re producing pollution, this is creating more in-climate weather that is damaging your factories and changing the landscape dynamically” sort of way. I think this was the natural next step given that the game is already about climbing the Kardashev scale, producing more energy so that you can construct the means to produce exponentially more energy. Seemed like the natural next step would be exploring the balancing act that has to happen to achieve that energy production without also creating systemic issues for yourself that make it infeasible.
Instead their latest patch adds aliens that attack you 😕.
I guess this game just doesn’t exist, but remember that tweet of the guy who had a dream about an open world pirate exploration game with Waluigi in it?
That game.
Now I’m just imagining AC Black Flag, but Waluigi just replaces Edward whole cloth, just does all the voicelines and everything, everybody else just pretends he’s a normal guy.
There is/was a fan made version of this in development! I don’t know the status of it currently, and I heard that development was rocky for a while… and they haven’t posted on the blog since 2020. But take a look anyway!
If you go role play as Waluigi in Sea of Thieves, that’s kinda the same thing.
Star citizen
Hopefully our grandkids will play a game like that, or be it in real life by the time it is complete… I’m saying that as someone who backed in 2013 and have about 2k worth of ships.
This but unironically. A game like SC would absolutely be My Thing™, although maybe without the MMO part (so I guess Squadron whatever-it-was from the SC team?) – generally people are twats and I want nothing to do with them.
Hmmm, quite hard to choose. I would say an anticapitalist game. Most of game focus on growing, gaining power and i never saw an game that has horizontal power hard coded to its bone.
For example : city skyline unlock new building based on population threesold. The city development is geared toward growing, expanding and creating new job. That’s bad. We can’t live in this kind of world anymore and yet we fail to imagime something different.
Can’t we imagine a new economical system and set up new variable ? Or a game that go beyond the scope of heroes’s story ? Why should we be special ?
Plenty of games are anti-capitalist (cookie clicker is the first one that came to mind!) but they are usually critiques of capitalism by demonstrating the issues with it, rather than demonstrating alternatives.
There’s a minecraft mod where villages will give you free resources if you’ve been helpful to them in the past, but it’s quite limited. I agree it would be interesting to play a game where alternative systems are clearly depicted. Would fit well with a sci-fi game.
Terra Nil is a great game. It’s really chill and relaxing.
True as Sim City where the end result it a big city without nature., nor landscape. :)
You start with an area that was destroyed by humans (and capitalism), and have to basically revive the ecosystem, and then remove all your buildings and leave.
There are also games like Stranded: Alien Dawn (which is sort of a mashup of Kenshi and Rimworld) where you are not supposed to be growing, you are supposed to either reach an equilibrium and live there sustainably, or escape/ leave.
Yeah, those game are great. Stranded, will look that. There is also Eco. And i would add getting over it :)
Another economical system ? Let’s say universal income, bank of time ? Libre currency ? An anarchy system with several democraty system and quadratic vote ? A shared decision along other mayors (players) ? I’m willing to explore those ideas where the idea of grow is simply erased along infinite ressource. Basnished is somewhat close to it as resources are limited.
Something that follow GIEC’s recommendation where building the biggest city will result a game over and economic collapse.
Horizontality skill system. Veloren try to do that but it’s not what i’m seeking. Maybe soul game are closer as you learn how to be better instead of using skill, weapon, armor ? It would erase the experience point in rpg system. There is no grow. You are just a human with the same set as everyone. No better armor, no new skills. So you can be killed by a new player.
Collaborative game instead competitive one . There are lot ideas to explore as relationship. :)
Eve Offline, with all other players being NPCs.
I have a mental hangup with the very real dread of when hosted multiplayer games die, that all the time and effort I have spent, and all the things I’ve built, will just suddenly disappear. It’s why I run a private G17 Mabinogi server on my pc, rather than playing online.
Saw this trailer the other day that might interest you, it’s an offline type mmo where all the other players are simulated. Erenshor Offline MMO Trailer
This what got me into the original .hack on PS2.
Back in the day I playtested this game concept under an NDA, but since it expired I can talk about it.
An FPS game in an open map with buildings, has 12 players playing but when someone dies, they respawn right there but swap to the opposite team. The last person to get shot gets eliminated and then the teams split again. This goes on until 6 players are remaining, who are declared the winning team.
It was really fun to play, and I quite miss it.
Doesn’t that mean that the last man standing is the first to lose?
So if your team is loosing you try to get shot deliberately to not be the last?
You could mitigate that by coms only being proximity and no indication of how many players each team has. Thst would also make offensive playstyles preferable.
What was that called?
So, if I die first in every round, I win?
Reminds me of zombie panic
That does sound like a lot of fun.
It used to exist, but not so much anymore. I miss heavily community based FPS multiplayer games. With custom servers and so on. I played Counter-Strike: Source last night, what a breath of fresh air!
Same, I played some Day Of Defeat: Source also a while back. I got onto a server, people were talking about random things and seemed to know each other, there was a sense of community, it felt like a local bar.
It’s 3am and I’m chilling and talking with strangers while surfing on CS:S. God, I miss this.
I miss that in newer games. It’s all matchmaking, all competitive and in many ways, modern games like this feels “no fun allowed”.
I really miss these days where games were more than just the game itself.
I also feel that newer games only focus on the competitive aspect.
Pretty much. It’s always competitive. Always on the grind. You can’t just play for fun, no. You have to be at your best every time, because now, there is this skill-based matchmaking algorithm watching your every move in game and so on.
I feel like I’m starting to get old when I say this, but every time I go back to play one of those old games, I get reinforced in this idea… so many games feel like jobs nowadays. It’s just like the real world, it’s all so competitive. No fun allowed. You can’t ever be goofing around, you have your rank to worry about… every shooter now keeps on getting updated, the meta keeps on changing, and you have to keep up with it constantly otherwise you’ll get left behind.
I can’t put it into words exactly, so excuse me if what I’m going to say sounds odd… But I feel like most of the modern entertainment available to me is really stressful and I can’t explain it. To be honest, it’s the first time I’m voicing this feeling, but I find it really distressing…
I think that I fully understand how you feel. It’s pretty much why I stopped playing online games. I want to be able to not think about being good or absolutly winning every single game. Most of the time, I would rather prefer trying out “dumb” stuff in the game or simply having random conversations while having fun.
Here’s a weird one I had a half-baked idea for: Tower Defense Metroidvania. The idea is that your an acolyte of a temple (or a mechanic in a space station, whatever), and there’s an armed group trying to force their way past the temple’s traps and defenses to get to the heart of the temple and steal the macguffin; that’s going on in a little horizontal track at the top of the screen, and meanwhile the rest of the screen is Metroidvania gameplay as you navigate the interior of the temple (or space station) to activate defenses, acquire magical relics, and eventually awaken the temple’s guardian spirit. You lose if the bad guys get to the heart of the temple, you win when you successfully gather everything you need to awaken the guardian. In the meantime, you have to decide when and where to spend resources (including time) shoring up the “normal” defenses (that delay the attackers) and when you need to just push onward to awaken the guardian.
This is what I enjoyed about the first Tribes game. I remember wandering around my base, repairing the generators, placing turrets, fixing sensors, and murdering attackers. The rest of the team would be off grabbing the other teams flag or messing up their base.
IMO the sequels didn’t get the balance between base maintenance and flag running quite right.
Damn dude, now I’m actually remembering base maintenance in online competitive games where you play a single character at all. Back in the day I used to enjoy that in Command & Conquer Renegade. Id hang back and repair people’s vehicles and the base when it came under attack.
I dig the role based games where deployables and vehicles are a thing. I’m sure there are still some around, but I can’t think of any.
The only thing that comes to mind would probably be the latest iteration of the Starsiege: Tribes series. Or I mean, the OG Tribes was great, and still one of my most fondly remembered shooters. Probably still some servers somewhere…
A turn-based, tactical, squad-centered action title where a collective of vicious aliens invade the planet and you as the leader of a group of brave if vulnerable heroes have to save the world from the strange new threat. Except this time the world the aliens have picked to invade is a fantasy realm.
Guiding mages, warriors and rogues against the threat from outer space, combining XCOMesque battles with traditional fantasy game combat and levelling mechanics. Advance through the map taking regions back in control rather than zigzagging around the globe. Both the dwarven and elven capitals are under attack, which one do you go to rescue first and gain the help a new race to pick your pool of heroes from? Manage your kingdom and choose which deities you build a temple for, determining whether you unlock paladins or warlocks as a sub-class. Beat the aliens to reach the dragon before its captured and converted to their side. And as you encounter more armoured enemies, let your blacksmiths experiment with slapping together scavenged items from the battlefield to form high -tier magitech armour of your own.
It’s a fever dream combination of effectively XCOM and Majesty that’s been in my head for years because I love quirky mashups like this. Not necessarily anything new under the sun but I feel like with some work put into it, you could really forge something unique by embracing the combination of styles and genre conventions.
That sounds amazing honestly.
Truly open-world Star Wars. Like a Breath of the Wild game except with multiple planets and all the Star Wars stuff.
We had something close to it with SW: Galaxies, but… RIP SW: Galaxies.
Modern AAA matrix game
I want to play a game like Fallout, with perhaps a light plot, but a much heavier settlement building mechanic.
Like, you found a settlement, and it’s filled with trash, debris, and burnt-out structures. As you scavenge and collect things, and attract people to your cause, the place slowly becomes cleaner and more structured. You can have settlers scavenge for themselves and fix up structures, farm for food, treat wounded, lead small armies against mutants and generally secure an area of a map, and really be able to treat the settlement as a home base.
Playing Fallout 4, I was bothered by how I could build out all these settlements, place structures and whatnot, help these people, and still no one had the sense to pick up a broom and sweep up the pile of trash in the street.
My friend. Look at the Sim Settlements mod for Fallout 4. It’s not EXACTLY what you want but damn if it isn’t really close.
Sounds a bit like State of Decay. Or maybe Surviving The Aftermath
I want a game that’s somewhere between Animal Crossing and Dwarf Fortress - something with the extensive world gen of DF, but with cute goofy animals, and maybe a little less grisly. So less sudden death by wildlife/zombies/collapsing ceilings, and more adorable wagon travel, trade and founding of settlements - which you then get to live in!
That sounds like a great idea. I’m picture something with the world and artwork of Root, but yeah, gameplay like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld.
So when you say “less sudden death”, would there still be death? Or would it have the potential as a kid-friendly intro to the simulation genre?
Omg yeah I had the style of Root in mind too!
I go back and forth on how much of the dwarf fortress vibes to let in. Probably it’d be a bit distressing to see your adorable villager friends just straight up die. On the other hand, it would be kind of interesting to experience them getting old and passing away, plus racking up memories, hangups, traumas and complicated social connections like the dwarves do.
Me and my SO had this idea (based on where we live lol) for a game that’s like Animal Crossing where it’s all cute and you build houses and a town for cute animal characters, except they’re all shitty crackheads so like you build a park and the next day there’s shit on the floor and all the streetlights are broken, you have to fish in the river to get old bikes and shopping carts out and so on.
A Microsoft Flight Simulator game but for cars.
I just wanna drive around the world and see shit I can’t otherwise see, but in real time drives. I got the inspiration from those Trucker Simulator games.
We’re almost there with Street View and satellite images, and the developer could do hand-modeling for certain cities and landmarks like MS FS does.
Yesssss, hard agree with this. I’ve been playing a lot of Euro Truck Simulator and I keep finding myself wishing it was 1:1 like MS Flight Sim. A woman can dream…
It’s not what really you’re looking for, but there are some really good open world map mods for Assetto Corsa that probably make it the closest feeling thing right now. They’re based on real places, so while it doesn’t give the touristy sense, it does a good job of capturing the vibe of just cruising around some beautiful scenery.
This. I remember playing Test Drive 3 as a kid, and being memorized with the choose your own route thing (which was huge for a game back then), and thinking how cool this sort of thing could be, if we could make the graphics realistic and basically make it like driving in the real world but it isn’t the real world.
Well now we can make the graphics realistic. And we certainly have the data, the imagery and the technology.
